DeepSeek-V4 Pro on Mac Studio M5 Ultra 512 GB

1.6T (49B active) on 512 GB at 1,200 GB/s. Hardware details · Model details

CompatibilityDoes not fit
Fits
No
Calculated Requires more than 97% of usable memory. Needs a smaller quantization or more memory.
Recommended quantization
MLX 4-bit
Calculated mlx
Memory required
899.2 GB
Calculated of 435.2 GB usable — 207%
Max practical context
0
Calculated model supports 1M

Memory budget at 8K context

Model weights
871.1 GB Calculated
KV cache
1.0 GB Calculated
Runtime overhead
27.1 GB Estimated
Total required
899.2 GB Calculated
Usable memory
435.2 GB Assumption
Headroom
-464.0 GB Calculated
No quantization in our catalogue fits this machine.
Unified memory: weights, KV cache and the OS share the same 512 GB pool. We assume 85% is addressable by the GPU, which matches a headless machine with the wired-memory limit raised.
Mixture of experts: all 1598.84B parameters must be resident in memory even though only ~49B are active per token. Memory follows total parameters; speed follows active parameters.
PerformanceEstimated0/10
Decode (generation)
Estimated calculated, not measured
Prefill (prompt)
Estimated
TTFT at 8K
~38.2–78.9 s
Estimated time to first token
Power while generating
225 W
Measured
No throughput figures for this pairing. We do not estimate performance for a model that cannot load: a tokens-per-second number for a configuration that will never run is noise, not data. The alternatives below are machines that can actually run DeepSeek-V4 Pro.
How the estimate is calculated
  1. Decode: reading 49.0B active parameters at 4.50 bits/weight takes 26.21 ms at 1200 GB/s x 88% achieved efficiency.
  2. MoE routing penalty of 15% applied: expert gathers are less bandwidth-efficient than a dense sweep.
  3. Prefill: 240 TFLOPS (FP16) x 1.69 calibrated against measured prefill on this platform x 22% assumed model-FLOPs utilisation, divided by 2 x 279.9B parameters per token.
  4. Prefill uses 279.9B effective parameters, not the 49B active in decode: a batch of hundreds of tokens routes across most of the expert pool.

  • MoE decode depends on how well the engine batches expert gathers; real results vary more than for dense models.
  • Prefill throughput is highly engine-dependent. Flash attention, batch size and quantized KV all move this number substantially, and for sparse mixture-of-experts models it is the least reliable figure we produce.
  • This is a calculated estimate, not a measurement. It assumes a single request, a short prompt, no speculative decoding and a warm model already resident in memory.

Estimator version estimator_v1. Stored with every estimated row so old estimates can be regenerated when the model improves.

This model at other quantizations on this machine
QuantizationWeightsTotal neededUtilisationFitMax context
MLX 4-bitrecommended871.1 GB899.2 GB207%Does not fit0
Q4_K_M929.8 GB959.7 GB221%Does not fit0
Q8_01613.7 GB1664.1 GB382%Does not fit0
Cost of running DeepSeek-V4 Pro on this machineUnited States (federal) · C corporation · 8h/day
Monthly economic cost
$118
Calculated after tax
Codex/Claude Code
$100/mo
≈ $100/mo · local is $18 more
Net cash at purchase
$11,350
Calculated VAT not reclaimable
Total over 5 years
$7,102
Calculated after tax, after resale
Cost per USD/1M tokens
Calculated

The $100 comparison uses the Codex Pro 5x / Claude Max 5x plans. A fixed planning conversion is used for USD. This compares monthly spend only: subscriptions have usage limits, local hardware has different capabilities and constraints, and taxes or regional pricing may change the charged amount. Prices checked 7 September 2026.

Monthly breakdown

Depreciation
7,945 over 5 years, straight-line to a 3,405 residual
$132.41
Electricity
9.9 kWh/month at 0.140/kWh
$1.38
Cost of capital
4.0%/yr on 7,377 average capital employed
$24.59
Monthly cost before tax$158.39
Electricity tax shield
Running costs are deductible business expenses
−$0.29
First-year expensing
§179 (100.0%)
−$39.72
Monthly economic cost after tax$118.37

Three different numbers, deliberately

Cash cost
$11,350
Money that leaves the bank account on day one, net of reclaimable VAT.
Accounting depreciation
$132.41/month
$7,945 written down over 5 years to a $3,405 residual.
After-tax economic cost
$118.37/month
Depreciation plus running costs plus cost of capital, less the tax those deductions save. This is the figure to compare between machines.
Assumptions and sources (verified 2026-09-07)
VAT rate
0% Official spec
VAT recoverable
0% Official spec
Federal C-corporation estimate at the flat 21% rate. Pass-through entities should use the sole-proprietor estimate as a rougher proxy.
Effective deduction rate
21.00% Calculated
Headline marginal rate 21.00%.
Depreciation
5 years, straight-line Assumption
Residual value
$3,405 (30%) Assumption
Extrapolated from the three-year curve.
Electricity
$0.140/kWh Assumption
Average power draw
56 W Calculated
Load 225 W for 20% of powered hours, idle 14 W for the rest — a machine that is on is not generating tokens the whole time.
Investment allowances
§179 100.0% Official spec
Worth $2,383 in total — first-year expensing that replaces later tax depreciation.
Cost of capital
$24.59/month Assumption
Federal planning estimate only, not tax advice. State and local income tax, sales/use tax and incentives are excluded. It assumes 100% business use, a Section 179 election, enough business income to use it, and that the full annual limit remains available.
Page quality score (why this page is or is not indexed)

6/13 marked noindex. Generated pages are gated so we do not ask a search engine to rank a page with nothing computed to say. The directive is emitted in the page head via the metadata API, not in the body, so it is authoritative.

  • Has a memory-fit calculation (+3)
  • Has a price (+2)
  • Has an ownership economics calculation (+2)
  • Well connected (12 internal links) (+1)
  • No benchmark or estimate
  • Model does not fit and there is no measurement to explain why it is worth knowing (-2)
  • Fails a hard requirement: an indexable page needs both a compatibility calculation and at least one benchmark or estimate.